Parlando: The COC Blog

12/23/2014

Artist Basics: Jennifer Holloway

With the new year comes new talent to the COC, including American mezzo-sopranoJennifer Holloway's company debut! Jennifer is known across the globe for her “nuanced dramatic impulses” and a “voice that is liquid, lambent, and lit from within.”

What she’s doing with us: Jennifer will be making her company debut as woman scorned Elvira in our upcoming production of Don Giovanni.

Where you might have seen her: Jennifer's recent performances have met with wide critical acclaim, including her English National Opera debut as Prince Orlofsky in Christopher Alden’s striking production of Die Fledermaus (a co-production with the Canadian Opera Company); her breakthrough performance at Argentina’s Teatro Colón as Temple Drake in the world premiere of Oscar Strasnoy’s new opera, Requiem; and her return to the Metropolitan Opera for Tebaldo in Don Carlo, conducted by the late Lorin Maazel. Jennifer has previously sung the role of Donna Elvira for both Pittsburgh Opera (2012) and Tulsa Opera (2011).

Jennifer Holloway as Irene in Teatro Real's Tamerlano, 2008 [first seen riding the elephant at 59:00]

Jennifer also has a wide variety of concert work under her belt, with highlights including her first appearances with the Marseille Philharmonic and Maestro Lawrence Foster in a concert tour of China, and with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in a program including the world premiere of Frédéric Chaslin’s Love and a Question, a series of songs based on poetry byRobert Frost, which Chaslin composed for her.

Broadsheet Music: A Year in Review

Mark down 2014 as the year the Canadian Opera Company put out an album with Broken Social Scene and Fucked Up. No, really. Broadsheet Music: A Year in Review is a collaborative effort between the The Globe and Mail and renowned record label Arts & Crafts, with the COC as a presenting partner, to create a diverse mix of songs based on the big issues and stories that affected the lives of Canadians this past year. These songs are collected in a free album featuring original songs created by diverse artists including celebrated indie collective Broken Social Scene, Polaris Music Prize winning hardcore punk band Fucked Up, Calgary’s Reuben And The Dark, and songstress Tamara Williamson, among others.

Topics explored in this unique project include missing aboriginal women in Western Canada, the divisive battle for Jerusalem, sexual violence and a culture of silence, and the loss of comic Robin Williams. The project comes to life in audio, video, photography and editorial, with elements featured both online at globeandmail.com as well as in print. The album is made available as a free download for a limited time from Arts & Crafts.

“Broadsheet Music bucks the trend of traditional year-end best-of lists in a massive and meaningful way,” said Jared Bland, Arts Editor of The Globe and Mail. “Together with our project partner Arts & Crafts and presenting partner Canadian Opera Company (COC), our goal was to commission a peerless collection of timeless songs, built by musical peers in a crystallized time. It is our gift to our readers, and the fans of these diverse and extraordinarily talented Canadian artists.”

Working in collaboration with Arts & Crafts and music director Charles Spearin (Do Make Say Think, Broken Social Scene), a collection of unique Canadian artists assembled in late fall to create distinctive and impactful songs. You can hear the COC Ensemble Studio’s own Karine Boucher and Owen McCausland on Fucked Up’s song, “Voce Rubata”, a seventeen-minute Italian opera in six acts looking at the misleading illusions of liberty and the voice.

“We are honoured to partner with The Globe on this ambitious and creative idea,” said Jonathan Shedletzky, Project Manager of Arts & Crafts. “The project provided the opportunity for a diverse collection of our artists to collaborate on the creation of meaningful and challenging pieces.”

This collaborative effort resulted in a 38-minute album of six songs covering a breadth of topics vital to our country and our time:

Don Giovanni – The Work of Two Geniuses

By Ian Kyer

Don Giovanni is considered one of the greatest operas of all time. The French composer Charles Gounod referred to is as “that unequalled and immortal masterpiece.” Virtually all of the lavish praise bestowed on this masterpiece is for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, its composer, but Don Giovanni is the work of two creative geniuses, not just one. The librettist Lorenzo da Ponte often does not get his fair share of the credit for this work. Da Ponte was quite a character. He was a fallen cleric, a womanizer and a gambler who regularly wore out his welcome in the cities where he worked (a character not unlike Don Giovanni himself). But there can be no doubt that he knew how to write for the opera. His other work for Mozart included The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte.

Da Ponte’s achievement with Don Giovanni is all the more amazing when you learn in his memoirs that he wrote its libretto at the same time as he wrote librettos for Vincente Martin y Soler’s L’arbore di Diana and Antonio Salieri’s Axur, Re d’Ormus – all three were hits at the time. In fact, they were all so successful that da Ponte would later wonder which was “the most perfect in words and music.” Like life itself they were a mixture of happiness and sadness, tragedy and comedy.

Selections from L’Abore d’Diana from Gran Teatre del Liceu

How da Ponte carried off this triple play gives us an insight into his genius. He did not conceive of these stories afresh. In each case he built on the work of others. For Don Giovanni he started with a libretto by Giovanni Bertati that had been set to music not long before by Giuseppe Gazzaniga. Da Ponte, however, did not copy Bertati’s work. He refined, improved, shaped and focused it.

His skill and sense of musical theatre is clearly demonstrated in how he turned Tarare, a French opera with libretto by Beaumarchais and music by Salieri, into one of the most popular operas of the day, Axur, Re d’Ormus. He and Salieri realized that Beaumarchais’ approach would not suit the Austrian Emperor and the operagoers in Vienna – it was just too sparse for their taste. So they set out to adapt the words and the music for Viennese audiences. The original French version of the opera, for example, began badly. The opening was flat and did not capture the interest of the audience. Beaumarchais began his work with a prologue, followed by a dialogue in recitative. There was no drama. Da Ponte dropped the French opera’s dull prologue and began his Italian version for Vienna with a lovers’ duet, which served as an introduction to the returning war hero and his soon-to-be-abducted wife. This touching duet was followed by the wife’s musical declaration of her love culminating in a further duet thereby setting the stage in a far more appealing and dramatic fashion. That was the creative genius of da Ponte and that is what he brought to Don Giovanni.

Overture to Axur Re d’Ormus

By the way, da Ponte’s attempt to write all three operas simultaneously was not entirely successful. It was then customary for the composer and the librettist to work together on a new opera almost up to the time when the curtain was raised. It was a collaborative effort, important to the successful opening. The problem was that Don Giovanni was being staged in Prague. Da Ponte went off with Mozart to Prague only to be called back to Vienna days before Don Giovanni was to be debuted. The premiere of Axur, Re d’Ormus had been moved up in Vienna because of a royal visit, and Salieri, as the Imperial Kapellmeister, had first rights to da Ponte’s services as the Court Poet. This was one of the cruel “tricks” that Salieri was said to have played on his rival Mozart. If, however, there was anyone to blame, it was the three-timing librettist. Even da Ponte with his theatrical genius could not be in two places at once.

In June 2008, the COC presented Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s rarely-seen Don Giovanni (on which da Ponte based hislibretto), performed by its Ensemble Studio members.